If it was up to my husband Arron (our founder/CEO), we would live in Alaska all year round, but we currently move around quite a bit between New York, Miami, and Homer.
When it became evident that we were going to have to quarantine, he decided there would be no better place to do so than in his hometown of Homer, Alaska — which is the story of how I currently find myself sitting at a dining room table to write this letter, while gazing out the window and making direct eye contact with a grazing moose.
And after a few months in this little house, the notion of being “stuck here” started to shift into a steady gratitude, because I kid you not, every single day on this land, under this sky, in the face of all these creatures and colors, feels like some kind of cosmic gift.
The Glory of Dynamism — In Alaska, everything feels ever-changing, a stream of volatility and diversity, a constant flow of contrasts, a pageant of extremes. Each time the tide recedes on the sands of Kachemak Bay, for example, a completely new shore is left exposed, etched distinctly, with tide pools reflecting the glimmers of sunshine in compositions completely different from the low tide prior.
The Relativity of Time — Here in the land of the midnight sun, it isn’t the sky that tells you when it’s time to wind down, but rather one’s own mind and body. The onslaught of sunshine asks you to be the master of your own clock, to honor the endless realm of possibilities built into constant daylight, but with reverence to the necessity of eventual rest.
The Power of Magnitude — As a New Yorker, accustomed to my buzzing labyrinthine microcosm, Alaska feels like the moon itself. Every drive is long, every road is winding and every horizon is endless, at once reminding me of an infinite vastness and my own tininess in the grand scheme of it all.
The Key to Inner Life — Although there is so much outward beauty here, ironically it nudges you to go inward, to spend time in silence, to reflect. Away from the crowded commotion and chaos of the cosmopolitan, it’s like you’re able to connect with the core of yourself.
The Elegance of Authenticity — Alaskans are fundamentally Alaskan. Absent is the frivolity of fashion, style or trend here; and its place, a legacy of timeless resourcefulness, survivalism and an unyielding connectedness to the earth.
The Majesty of Creation — Not that there’s anything wrong with a gaggle of garbling pigeons, but there’s something uniquely epic about witnessing an eagle soar high in the sky. Or a whale flipping its massive tail onto the otherwise still surface of the water. Or a couple of ebony-colored bunnies hopping around choreographically.
The Gratitude for Abundance — The natural resources of this place are like a spiritual currency, given and taken to and from organism to organism. Plankton feeds salmon feeds human and bear alike, an ongoing symbiosis, layers of energy forever in flux.
So you see, in this way, the quality of my quarantine went from scared to sacred in no time, each day became a lesson, each moment a motif.
P.S. I named the moose Mordekai.
Pictured above: the vast shores of Kachemak Bay in Homer, Alaska during a low tide on a Saturday, in a full-throttle display of biomimicry in all of its perfectly patterned glory.
